Can you believe it? Just last week, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins announced at the Washington Economic Club—five major categories of crypto tokens, with four not counting as securities!

No joke. That SEC, which once dragged a certain firm to court, and also sued Ripple—this SEC that has made countless project teams “flee to Dubai and Singapore”—suddenly started speaking plain human language.

Atkins himself admitted it: the past regulatory approach pushed innovation overseas.

Now he’s rolling out an “A-C-T” strategy:

- A dvance: Advance regulatory modernization (stop using 1946-era laws to regulate 2026 on-chain assets)

- C larify: Clarify the boundaries (which falls under the SEC, which falls under the CFTC—finally drawing a line)

- T ransform: Transform the rules (not patching them, but rewriting the script)

They really released a classification system. Among the five token categories, four are clearly not governed by securities law.

There’s also an “innovation exemption” mechanism: on-chain tokenized securities trading now has, for the first time, a compliant pathway.

The CLARITY Act, a May hearing, and a July vote.

Don’t get too excited yet. Just the SEC’s position isn’t enough—you also have to see what Congress does.

CLARITY Act timeline:

- May: Hearing

- July: Senate-wide vote

- Probability of passage within the year: about 50%

The core of this bill is just one thing: draw a clear line between “what is a security” and “what is a commodity.”

Once that line is drawn, the SEC and CFTC won’t keep fighting anymore. If they stop fighting, project teams won’t have to worry about getting fined by B even after achieving “compliance A.”

If the bill becomes law, which sectors will benefit most?

Layer 1 / Native tokens of public chains

With the four non-security categories, “functional network tokens” like Ethereum, Solana, and Avalanche will most likely be classified as “non-securities.”

DeFi governance tokens

Now the classification system is clear: tokens used purely for voting, protocol parameter adjustments, and with no profit promise are not securities.

For tokens from projects like Uniswap, Aave, and Curve, compliance costs will drop sharply. If U.S. users dare to use them, developers will dare to build them.

Tokenized RWA

The “innovation exemption” mechanism itself is tailored specifically for RWA—on-chain tokenized securities trading now has, for the first time, a compliant pathway.

Government bonds, stocks, and private credit can all be placed on-chain legally.

CEX exchange tokens

Exchange platform tokens, which in the past were most afraid of being labeled “unregistered securities,” can now finally breathe a sigh of relief with this classification coming out.

Don’t rush in. The probability of passage within the year is only about 50%#比特币反弹 #GatePreIPOs首发SpaceX $BTC $ETH